Author: IISD, IUCN, Helvetas, SEI
Year of publication: 2012
Available languages: English French Spanish
Type of assessment: Comprehensive impact and risk assessment
Format of assessment: Web tool
Details: Desktop application that runs on Microsoft Windows 7 or newer versions
Estimated costs for conducting: Costs associated with the project team meetings and community consultations
Estimated duration of assessment: Between two and five days
To be carried out by whom: Multiple actors
Details: CRiSTAL targets project planners and managers working at the local or community level. However, a wide range of other actors may also use the tool (including policy-makers and decision makers).
Institutional scale of use: Local/community
Details: CRiSTAL targets project planners and managers working at the local or community level
Assesment to be used by which target audience: Others (please specify)
Details: Project managers of local development projects
Output: Report
Details: List of livelihood resources that are most affected by climate hazards and most important for responding to climate impacts; Proposed adjustments to existing projects and new activities to support climate adaptation; List of desired adaptation outcomes and important influencing factors to be monitored.
Region of origin: North America, Europe
Developed by which sector: Science, Development cooperation
Applied in practice: Yes
Geographic coverage in analysis: Worldwide
Potential geographic coverage: Worldwide
Sectors covered: Livelihood sector
Details: Basic unit of assessment are resources needed for livelihoods - no sectoral specification
Method used: Mixed method approach
Description of methodology: Information collected from desk-based review and stakeholder consultations at the local level (community and other local experts) using participatory methods. Includes impact chains
Risk framework used: AR5
Risk components incorporated: All
Hazards and impacts considered in the assessment: All hazards
Source of required data: Primary and secondary
Details: Ongoing project activities; current and future climate conditions; information on livelihoods and groups; ecosystem and environmental degradation
Temporal scale: Current, Forward looking
Participatory elements: Yes
Details: Emphasis is put on stakeholder consultations and mapping of resources / climate risks by local focus group
Consideration of interconnectedness and -dependencies of risks: Partly
Adressing uncertainty: Yes
Details: We therefore recommend that you compare different sources and look for projections that are based on different models and scenarios. Also, make sure to note any uncertainty ranges that are mentioned in the projections (e.g., a projected 3°C temperature rise by 2050 may come with an uncertainty range of 1.5°C to 5°C; average rainfall projections may be negative but the uncertainty range can be from +20% to -50%; extreme events projections are often even more uncertain)
Scope of assessment: Identification of risks, assessment of impacts, identification of adaptation options, priorization of adaptation options, identification of limits to adaptation
Details: Consultation are supposed to analyse whether current response strategies are sustainable and will continue to be so in future
Economic/Non-Economic losses incorporated: Economic
Applicability for entire risk spectrum (from extreme weather events to slow onset processes): Yes
Details: Questions are formulated to address extreme events and slow onset changes in rainfall and temperature patterns
Recommendations for Adaptation measures included in Climate Risk Assessment: Yes
Details: CRiSTAL helps users to identify livelihood resources most important to climate adaptation and uses these as a basis for designing adaptation strategies
Usefulness for political purposes: Rather for individual project scale
Open access: Yes